How recycling more steel and aluminum could slash imports without a trade war

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Daniel Cooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Many economists expect President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to increase what American companies and consumers pay for those metals and the goods made from them. Dozens of companies have already said they will have to fire workers or even go out of business. And, as the retaliatory tariffs Canada, Japan, Mexico and other countries have announced underscore, the U.S. is heading for a trade war with the nation’s closest allies.

But having spent the last eight years researching how to make the steel and aluminum industries more efficient, I believe it’s possible for the U.S. to slash imports of these metals not by imposing duties but by boosting the reuse and recycling of old metal products.

Making far more of the nation’s discarded steel and aluminum scrap as good as new would have many advantages aside from its diplomatic dividends, such as cutting pollution and energy consumption.

Regardless of whether those assertions are reasonable, I believe that these imports, nearly two-thirds of the aluminum and about one-third of the steel the U.S. consumed in 2017, could be nearly entirely displaced if America were to step up its reuse of scrap metal.

Making steel from ore requires making iron first using coke, a high-carbon fuel made by baking coal at over 1,000 degrees Celsius. Coke removes oxygen from the iron oxide in the ore, producing iron but inevitably creating carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas then released to the atmosphere.

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Heads of state attended the G7 summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, on June 9, 2018. Top row: European Council president Donald Tusk, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Bottom row: Seychelles President Danny Faure, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. US president Donald Trump’s recent protectionist moves were at the top of the agenda.
Ludovic Marin/AFP